Part 1: Speaking - Planning a functional language lesson

What do we mean by speaking?

If you search for a definition of speaking, the following definition (or similar) is likely to be the first
one you find: the action of conveying information or expressing one’s feelings in speech.

This is what is meant by ‘speaking’ in language teaching. We are referring to communicating -

conveying messages through speech. We do not just mean 'making a noise with your voice'.

For example, if your lesson has included a lot of drilling, you may feel that you have provided
speaking practice because the students have made a lot of noise. However, when students listen
and repeat what the teacher says, they are not actually conveying messages through speech.
Therefore this is not classed as speaking.

Accuracy based activities

As we have already mentioned, controlled practice activities where the main focus is
on accuracy (in terms of grammar or pronunciation) are also not usually classified as speaking
activities.

Controlled practice activities may include some limited communication.

For example, a class of low level students are asked to form a chain around the class. Each student
asks the next “Do you like…..dogs/dancing/English lessons/pop music etc.” The student has to
respond “Yes I do/No I don’t“. In this case, there is some communication involved. The students
decide how to complete the question and can respond in one of two ways.

While a speaking lesson may include some controlled practice, you should not make the whole
lesson accuracy focussed. The overall aim of a speaking lesson is to promote fluency and the ability
to communicate freely in English.

What do we do with language?

When we are thinking about what we need to teach in speaking lessons, it is helpful to think about
what we do with language when we are speaking.

What are you doing when you say hello or hi to someone?

Think about your answer before moving to the next slide.

Greeting people
When we say hello or hi we are greeting an individual or a group an of people.

Although hello and hi are the most common ways of greeting people in English, there are other
words and phrases that we could use to do this.
 NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY: Make a list of all the different words and phrases we can use to
greet people and ask how they are, then compare your list with ours.

Greeting people - a language function

Here's our list (by no means exhaustive) of different words and phrases we can use to greet people
(and ask how they are). You may well have other ones on your list.

 Good morning.
 How are you?
 Good afternoon.
 How’ve you been doing?
 Good evening?
 Hey! Yo!
 How are you?
 Hiya!
 What’s up? Wassup? Sup?
 Howdy!
 All right?
 What’s new?
 What’s going on?
 How do you do?
 How’s it going?
 Nice to meet you.
 How’s it hanging?
 Pleased to make your acquaintance.
 Long time, no see.
 Pleased to meet you.

Obviously, there is a wide range in the level of formality here and some of these phrases would be
totally inappropriate in certain situations. Some would only be appropriate for someone you had only
just met and others only for good friends. In terms of style choices there are probably some on the
list that you would never use.

What they all have in common, though, is that they all perform the same function of greeting
people.
The different things we do with language, such as greeting people, are known as functions.

Making a request
Another example of a function in English is making a request. For example, asking someone to open
a window.

Think of different situations in which you might ask someone to open a window for you.
 NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:
Make a list of all the different ways in which you might frame your request.

When you have completed your list, compare it with the one of the next slide.

Making requests
Here are a few suggestions of different ways of asking someone to open a window, you have
probably thought of many more:

 I wonder if you'd mind opening the window?

 Would you mind opening the window?
 Could I possibly ask you to open the window?
 Would/could/can/will you open the window, please?
 Open the window, will you?
 Open the window.
 Open the window, please.
 It's a bit stuffy in here, isn't it?
 Does anyone else want a bit of fresh air?

Again, all the different ways of saying this can be seen to perform the same function - in this case,
making a request.

Functional exponents
These different ways of expressing the same function are called exponents.

As with the different greetings, the one you choose would probably depend on where you were and
how well you knew the person you were asking to open the window.

Notice that the more formal requests tend to be longer and more grammatically complex. With
people we know well, we can use the simplest form; the imperative – that means just the verb
without the subject e.g. 'Open the window' - but this could sound impolite in a different situation.

 I wonder if you'd mind opening the window?

 Would you mind opening the window?
 Could I possibly ask you to open the window?
 Would/could/can/will you open the window, please?
 Open the window, will you?
 Open the window.
 Open the window, please.

 It's a bit stuffy in here, isn't it?

 Does anyone else want a bit of fresh air?

The last two suggestions are indirect ways of saying that you would like a window to be opened and
are specific to that particular situation. But notice that for all the other exponents, we could substitute
'open/opening the window' with another request, for example 'pass/passing the salt', give/giving me
a lift home', etc.

Thinking about functional English is helpful when you are deciding what to teach in speaking
lessons.

Functions
Take a look at these language functions and our example exponent for each one.

Think of at least two more common exponents for each function.

Language Function Example Exponent

Offering Do you want (a drink)?
Refusing No, thanks.
Promising I'll definitely (be there).
Warning Be careful!
Inviting Can you (come to my party)?
Asking for information Can you tell me (the way to the station)?
Asking for/giving advice What do you think I should do? If I were you,
I'd...
Making suggestions What about (giving him a tie)?

Giving opinions Personally, I think...

Agreeing You're absolutely right.

Disagreeing Yes, but...

Prohibiting You can't go out tonight.

Making logical deductions He must have left for work, then.

(working things out from available evidence)

There are so many possibilities here that we are not giving any suggested answers. The important
point for you to understand is that there are many different ways of saying the same thing.

See Further Resources at the end of this unit for examples of functional material.
Functions
Functions are a way of describing how language operates, there is not a recognised finite list as
there is for the tenses. Notice that some functions overlap. For example, is 'I think you should see
that film' a piece of advice or a suggestion?
It doesn't really matter exactly how you describe the different functions, this is simply a useful way of
thinking about language.

If you look at the contents pages of many English language teaching course books, you will usually
find a functional language component. This is often called ‘Everyday English’ or 'Conversational
English’ or similar. A lesson of this type is based around one or two functions, e.g.
invitations/accepting and refusing invitations.

If you were giving a lesson on, for example, giving advice, you would not tell the students all the
different possibilities at once, just as you would not look at all the uses of the past simple in one
lesson.

At lower levels we teach grammatically simpler functional language. When the students are at a
higher level, they return to the same functions, but more complex exponents are introduced, so that
students gradually build up a wide range of ways in which they are able to express functions, such
as giving and asking for advice.

Notice that a lot of functional exponents use verbs such as would, could, will and should.

These are known as modal verbs.

Can you remember which verbs are modal verbs?

Complete the interactive activity below.

What is functional language?

Make a list of the different ways of giving advice, e.g. Why don’t you...?

When you have completed your list, reveal our answers on the next slide and compare them with
your own.

Giving advice - planning a functional language lesson

Here are some ways of giving advice in English (you should be able to think of several more
possibilities).

 Have you thought about...?

 How/What about...?
 You should...
 Why don't you...?
 It might be a good idea to...
 It would be good if you...
 If I were you, I'd...
  Perhaps you could...
 You could try...
 Have you tried...?
 You ought to...
 I suggest...
 I'd recommend...
 I advise...
 If talking to friends, we often just use imperatives, 'Go to the doctor'.

Stronger advice:

 You really should...

 You must...
 You've got to...
 You have to...

The rest of Part 1 of this unit will take you through the planning of a functional language lesson.

If you were going to give a pre-intermediate (A2) group their first lesson on giving advice, which two
of the forms from the above would you choose?

Note down your answer and then look at the next slide.
Selecting the 'target language' for the lesson
The language that you teach in the lesson is referred to as the target language*. Any of the
following would be suitable target language for students' first lesson on giving advice.

 How/What about...?
 You should...
 Why don't you...?
 (Perhaps) you could ....

The following structures are less suitable for pre-intermediate students:

Suggest, recommend and advise because the structures that can follow are quite complicated.

e.g.

 I suggest...
 I'd recommend...
 I advise...
 It would be good if you...

Exponents that use the 2nd conditional because students will not yet have been introduced to that
form.

e.g.

 If I were you, I'd...

Imperatives and stronger ways of offering advice are not suitable because there is a risk of lower-
level students sounding rude when they use these forms (they may not yet have a very good sense
of the effects of intonation).

e.g.

 Go to the doctor
 You must...
 You've got to...

Could try is not really suitable because it involves using three verbs together, which is complicated.
e.g.

 You could try ...(+ing)

Ought to is not suitable because unlike other modal verbs, it is followed by 'to', which makes it
potentially confusing.

 You ought to...

Exponents that use the present perfect are not suitable because a pre-intermediate group will not yet
have been introduced to that form.

e.g.

 Have you thought about...?

 Have you tried...?

* Target language is also used to refer the foreign language as a whole - in EFL course the target
language is English
Possible context for the target language
Lets now use the scenario where you have decided to give a lesson on presenting advice using the
two forms you should and what about...?
You need to think of a context in which this language would occur.

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:

Imagine someone tells you they have a terrible headache.

Think of three or four pieces of advice you might give them, beginning with the two phrases:

 You should...
 What about...?
Possible context for the target language
Here are a few examples of the advice you might give to someone who has a headache using You
should and What about...?You will of course, have thought of a few others.

Possibilities are:

You should take a painkiller/call a doctor/lie down/turn off the light/not read/drink plenty of water etc.

What about taking a painkiller/calling a doctor/lying down/turning off the light/not reading/drinking
plenty of water etc.

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:

Look at the language that follows You should and What about...?

How can you present the form in a formal way (S + should +...), so that students would know how to
form the sentence correctly whenever they used these phrases?

Check the answer on the next slide.

Form of the target language

This is how the form is presented.

S + should + infinitive (without to)

e.g. You should go to the doctor

You (S) + should + go (infinitive) to the doctor

What about + verb + -ing ?

e.g. What about going to the doctor?

What about going (verb + ing) to the doctor?

If students understand the form, then they can generate their own sentences, not just repeat the
examples they saw in the lesson.

In lessons presenting functional language, teachers often follow the same procedures as for
grammar lessons.

PPP procedure - selecting a context

We will examine the PPP teaching procedure in more depth in Unit 7 (Grammar teaching), but for
now we can say it consists of:
1. Presentation of the new language (target language)

2. Practice – controlled practice of the new language

3. Production – freer practice of the new language

We will consider how you could apply this procedure to a low level lesson on giving advice.

For the presentation stage of the lesson, the teacher needs to think of a suitable context in which
to present the target language (You should... and What about...? for giving advice).

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:

Make a list of different situations in which you might give or ask for advice.

When you have completed your list, look at the next slide.

Possible contexts
Some possibilities of different situations in which you might give or ask for advice are:

 asking for advice about relationship problems,

 problems at work,
 a failing business,
 looking for/applying for a job,
 health/weight problems,
 bringing up children, etc.

You would choose one which you thought was relevant/entertaining for your students and could
generate some fairly simple advice using familiar language and starting with you should/what
about…?

Practice activity

Think about which of these situations could be easily presented to your students that would enable
you to elicit the problem, and some advice on how it could be resolved. If you can make it visual -
something you could enact or use pictures to illustrate, it is easier for students to understand the
context than if you give a long verbal explanation.

Do an Internet search or look in magazines to find pictures (or draw your own pictures) that would
help depict the situation and elicit the required language from students.

Using the context to elicit the target language

This is how you might take the situation 'a failing business' as the context, and use that to elicit the
target language from the students.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 1: Introduce the lesson

The teacher starts the lesson by beginning to set the scene
'I'm a bit worried today. This friend of mine phoned me yesterday.'

Step 2: Use pictures to illustrate the situation

'This is Dave - he's the one who phoned me. We went to college together. He works in restaurants.
He's a cook.
Look, here's a picture of Dave from last month.
How does he look?'

Students suggest unhappy, sad etc.

'OK. Yes, he is. I'll tell why he's so unhappy.

Step 3: Develop the situation

'Dave worked in restaurants for years. He worked for other people - he always had a boss.
He saved all the money he could......can you guess what he wanted to do?'
Show picture of Club 50 Cafe

Students make suggestions (hopefully appropriate - teacher can steer them in the right direction by
emphasising that he didn't like working for a boss, pointing at the picture etc.)

'That's right! He bought a restaurant last year. He's the boss now.
But it's not as good as he hoped. Look...'

Eliciting the target language

Step 4: Providing more detail

'Here's a picture inside his restuarant...'

Step 5: Move towards need for target language

'...and this is Dave's kitchen! What do you think? Would you like to go to Dave's restaurant?'

Students say no, it is dirty and horrible etc.

Step 6: Pose questions to prompt target language (TL)

'...so you can see why I'm worried about him. It's terrible, his business. No one wants to go there.
He's afraid he will lose his money. He's really unhappy.
I'm going to phone him later.
What can I tell him? What would you say?'

Step 7: Elicit (or give) target language (TL)

Students call out suggestions. Hopefully someone will use the TL. If anyone produces a sentence
with 'should,' grab it! Ask the student to repeat it, then get the whole class to repeat it, and write it on
the board.

If no one produces the TL, then the teacher takes one or two suggestions the students have made
and puts them into the TL:

'OK, thanks. Some good ideas here. You said 'Clean the restaurant,' but that sounds a bit impolite:
CLEAN YOUR RESTAURANT, DAVE!! Poor Dave! Look he's unhappy. How can I sound nicer? Any
ideas?

OK, everyone, listen: You should clean your restaurant.'

Practice activity - eliciting

PRACTICE ACTIVITY

Find a friend and using either the example we have just looked at, or another situation you have
thought of, try to elicit 'You should..'. or 'How about....-ing'

If you have not got a handy English speaker, try it in your own language. It is just the technique you
are practising here.

Remember, do not just tell the person the target language.

If you can elicit the target language (He should.../What about...?) this shows that you have presented
the situation clearly enough for it to be obvious what sort of language is needed in this situation.
If the students don't already know the language, then you tell them at this point, but presenting the
context and creating a 'need' for the target language helps them understand what it means.

Presentation of new language in a clear context helps the students understand what it
means.

MFP: Meaning, Form, Pronunciation

How does MFP apply to teaching You should and What about...? for giving advice.

Meaning
The context helps with the meaning.

Form
We saw earlier that the form of the language is:
S + should + infinitive (without to)

What about + verb + -ing?

Pronunciation
What do the students need to know about the pronunciation of the target language?
Compare your answers with the next slide

Pronunciation
What do the students need to know about pronunciation in the target structure?

The L in should is not pronounced. This is the most important point.

The sentence stress and intonation patterns will be more difficult for you to identify at this stage.

(When you are teaching you do not need to worry about this; simply get the students to listen and
repeat. You will be able to hear if they are doing it properly or not.)

Complete the interactive activity below and think about the sentence stress and intonation
patterns.

Drilling to teach pronunciation

The teacher can drill* some example sentences to help students practise the correct pronunciation.

* drill - make all the class repeat – This is very controlled practice.

After completing the drilling, what would you focus on next?

Check your answer on the next slide

Controlled practice
After completing the drilling, you should focus on further controlled practice in order to develop
accuracy.

Accuracy at this stage means getting both the grammatical forms and the pronunciation correct.

A simple written gap-fill exercise would provide controlled practice of the correct forms.

For example:

Use the verbs below to complete the advice for Dave.

He should _______________ some new tables.

What about _____________ the kitchen?

He should _______________ the walls.

repair buy paint clean change smile wash

Think of some gap-fill questions to use the remaining verbs.

Check your answers on next slide.

Controlled practice
Some possible questions are:

 He should __________ the ceiling. (repair)

 What about __________ sometimes? (smile)
 What about __________ his clothes? (change)
 He should __________ the floor. (wash)

You could also devise a similar controlled speaking activity.

After completing the controlled practice activities, what type of practice would you follow this with?

Check your answer on next slide.

Freer practice - role plays

Freer practice (production) activities are most often speaking activities. The emphasis is now on
fluency.

Role plays make an effective freer practice activity .

Steps for planning a role play activity:
Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Planning a role play

Step 1:

Provide the tools

Before doing a role play you should have already presented and given controlled practice of the
language students will need for the role play.

If you haven't done this, then the role play activity will be difficult and not very useful.

Step 2:
Create a suitable situation
In advance of the lessson: Think of a situation that you could use in a role play that would require the
students to either ask for or give advice.

Step 3: Produce role cards

In advance of the lessson: Make role cards for the students.

Each card should explain to the student;

1. What their role is.

2. The situation within which they are to perform their role.

3. Whether they will be asking or receiving advice from someone.

Step 4:
Allocate roles and get students to prepare
In class: For this 'advice' role play, the teacher puts all the 'advice seeker' role playing students in
one group and all the 'advice givers' in another group, then hands out the appropriate role cards and
any other materials students need.

This technique allows the groups to discuss in advance the things they are going to say before you
actually ask them to perform the role play.

This means they are less likely to run out of ideas and is particularly helpful for the weaker or less
imaginative students.

Be sure to allow the students plenty of preparation time. The better prepared they are, the more
effective the next stage will be.
Step 5:
Perform the role play
Put the students into pairs: A - Advice seeker and B - Advice giver.

Roles should then be played out with each student asking for or giving advice.

While they do this, the teacher monitors and takes notes for a follow-up feedback and correction
spot.

Creating role cards

We will now use the earlier scenario about Dave ...

Write out the two role cards you could give to (1) Dave and (2) the business consultant.

Remember the students are quite low level, so the language should not be too advanced.

When you have completed your role cards, look at our ideas on the next slide.

Here is a document that you can download and print out for this activity. If you
prefer, just write the role cards in your own notebook.

Role cards
Here are possible role-play cards for Dave and his business consultant.

Dave's role-play card:

Dave
You always wanted to run a restaurant.
Last year you bought a restaurant.
Unfortunately it is not very successful.
You don't have enough customers.
You are going to ask a business consultant to give you some advice.

Plan the questions you will ask him/her.

Business consultant's role-play card:

 Business consultant
Today you are going to see a man called Dave about his restaurant.
Here are some pictures of Dave and his business.

What advice will you give Dave?

Plan what you will say to him.

What vocabulary from these cards might you need to pre-teach before asking students to prepare for
this role play?

Previous

Reveal our answer

Role cards
Here are possible role-play cards for Dave and his business consultant.

Dave's role-play card:

Dave
You always wanted to run a restaurant.
Last year you bought a restaurant.
Unfortunately it is not very successful.
You don't have enough customers.
You are going to ask a business consultant to give you some advice.

Plan the questions you will ask him/her.

Business consultant's role-play card:

 Business consultant
Today you are going to see a man called Dave about his restaurant.
Here are some pictures of Dave and his business.

What advice will you give Dave?

Plan what you will say to him.

What vocabulary from these cards might you need to pre-teach before asking students to prepare for
this role play?

Part 2: Other ideas for working on speaking skills

Free speaking - Focus on fluency
Aims
The aim of free-speaking activities and lessons is to activate language that students have been
taught and to give them practice in using language freely and spontaneously.

The emphasis is on fluency, not accuracy, so the teacher should not correct mistakes when they are
made, but should instead note them down for a correction spot at the end of the lesson or activity.

Planning a speaking lesson - the three Ts

When planning a speaking lesson there are 'three Ts' to think about: topic, task and tools.

Topic - what they will talk about? You need to choose something that is interesting and relevant to
your students.

Task - what activity will you use to get them to talk about the topic? You need to think of a suitable
activity within which the topic can be dealt with.

Tools - what language do they need to talk about this topic? Even if your students are interested in
current affairs, if they are very low level they simply would not have enough language to be able to
do something like have a debate about immigration.

Activities for speaking lessons

Here are some ideas for activities and games that you could use in speaking lessons. You have
probably thought of some other possibilities in addition to these.
Click on an item to find out more about it, or just go through the list in order.
1. Problem-solving
2. Ranking activities
3. Role plays and simulations
4. Discussions
5. Debates
6. Balloon debates
7. Student talks/presentations
8. Describing pictures
9. Information gap
10. Storytelling activities
11. Instructions

Problem-solving

This could be any type of problem:

1. Working out the answer to a logic or lateral thinking problem
2. Solving a practical problem such as what would be the best way to organise the new library? How
can I deal with my very grumpy and unreasonable neighbours?
3. There are elaborate problem solving games for language practice, which are known as mazes.
See for example, The British Council's Holiday Maz

Ranking activities

Any discussion activity which involves putting items in order of importance. For example, you could
give students a list of professions and ask them which ones are most important to society. Or you
could give them a list of items that might be taken to a desert island and ask them to choose the five
most useful. Students need to explain the reasons for their choices.

This sort of activity works well if organised as a pyramid discussion; students work in progressively
larger groups (e.g. first in pairs, then fours, then 8s, then whole class). At each stage they need to
reach a concensus.

Role plays and simulations

We looked at role plays in our section on functional language. Simulations are more elaborate role
plays which involve the whole class in a discussion or task. For example, you might set the scenario
of developers who want to build a new housing estate in a country village. The parish council is
holding a meeting to discuss the proposals. Students would be allocated different roles such as local
residents, councillors, builders, developers, etc., all of whom have their own views on whether or not
the project should be allowed to go ahead. (See Teaching about Landmines in Further
Resources for an example.)

Discussions
For intermediate level students you can organise discussions in groups or as a class on a range of
topics such as music, places to visit, films, sport etc. according to your students' interests. You must
ensure learners are familiar with the vocabulary and functional language they will need (tools) in
order to take an active part in a class discussion.

Debates
For more advanced classes you could set up a formal debate with students arguing for opposing
viewpoints.

These take a lot of preparation and you need to choose a topic which will genuinely interest and
engage the whole class.

Balloon debates
Students work in small groups, each one takes on the identity of a famous person. They are in a hot
air balloon which cannot carry all of them. One person must be sacrificed so the others can be
saved. Each student has to argue why he/she should not have to jump out, then the group votes on
who has to go.

Student talks/presentations
These can be prepared for homework. You might get two or three students a week to give a
presentation across the whole term. Make sure they do not last too long (they can be boring!).

Make it absolutely clear that students are not allowed to prepare a written script which they then
just read aloud.

Other students can ask follow-up questions.

Describing pictures
This is a good speaking activity for students who are reluctant to get involved in discussion-type
activities. Students have to describe photographs, paintings or cartooon pictures.

They could speculate about the situation depicted, express their opinion, guess which one of a
number of different pictures their partner is describing, and so on.

Information gap
Information gap activities encourage learners to work together.

One learner holds a piece of information that the other learner needs in order to complete a task.

You can for example divide up the clues in a logic problem, so that learners have to share the
information they have in order to solve the problem.

Storytelling activities
Again, good for students who do not feel comfortable with expressing opinions. The teacher can give
them a list of words and also pictures, from which they have to tell a story.

Or students could tell personal stories about experiences they have had, for example, 'Have you
ever had an accident? Tell your partner/the others in your group about your accident'.

Instructions
This can be a good pair activity, where learners have to give each other specific instructions in order
to complete an activity or task.

Tools - language needed and preparation time

As we saw when thinking about the role-play activity for giving advice, you may need to pre-teach or
revise some language that will be useful for doing the task.

Unless the task is very straightforward, you should also give students time to think about what they
want to say.

The language you need to look at in advance will often include some vocabulary specific to the topic
and some functional language relevant to the task.

So the simulation described earlier would need vocabulary on the topics of building, development
and potential damage to the environment and functional language used at formal meetings:
agreeing, politely disagreeing, putting forward a proposal, making a suggestion, etc.

In order to get the language that you are pre-teaching or revising to be used in a speaking activity, it
is particularly important that the students practise pronunciation.

What should the teacher do while the students are talking to each other?

Complete the interactive activity below.

Key points for teacher

Here are the key points for a teacher facilitating students in speaking activities:

1. Although it can be quite tempting to give your own opinions, you should avoid this, especially on
controversial issues, as it can be quite off-putting for students to find that you have very different
opinions from their own - as far as possible you should remain fairly neutral.

2. Only express disagreement/disapproval of students' opinions if someone says something very

offensive that is likely to upset other members of the group.

3. Because the aim is fluency, you should not risk distracting students from their attempts to
communicate their ideas by correcting their pronunciation or grammar while they are talking, unless
it is so inaccurate that nobody else can understand them.

Speaking lessons - a useful procedure

Because the speaking lesson task types vary so much, it is not possible to give a procedure you can
use for every speaking lesson or activity.

However, the procedure shown on the next few slides will work well for many speaking lessons.

Stage 1 - Introduce the topic (T1)

Stage 2 - Present the tools i.e. language needed (T3)

Stage 3 - Provide drilling and other controlled practice

Stage 4 - Set the task (T2), and give students time to prepare

Stage 5 - Do the activity

Stage 6 - Feedback and correction spot

Stage 1
Introduce the topic that is going to be used for the speaking activity.

This is the warmer/lead-in to the lesson. You need to get students fully engaged and motivated at
this point to ensure the lesson is successful.

Stage 2
Pre-teach any vocabulary and/or functional language students will need for the task.

Stage 3
Drill the language you have introduced for pronunciation and to help students memorise it.

You should provide some other controlled practice activities after the drilling.

Stage 4
Set the task.
In pairs/ small groups students prepare what they are going to say (e.g. for a debate, role play or
simulation), or discuss the first part of the speaking task (e.g. for a pyramid discussion). This
means thinking about what they want to say - they should not write a text to read aloud.

Stage 5
Students do the main activity in larger groups or as a whole class (e.g. the simulation, debate or
agreeing a final conclusion to a problem).

The teacher monitors and takes notes, offering support if necessary, but mainly not participating or
intruding.
Stage 6
Teacher gives feedback on how well they did the task, and a correction spot.

Find some things to praise in this stage, so that people are aware of the progress they are making.
This motivates learners more effectively than just pointing out all their mistakes.

Remember the 'sandwich method.'

Speaking lessons - conclusion

So far in this unit on teaching the productive skills we have looked at speaking.

We have considered the difference between fluency and accuracy and looked at various classroom
activities that promote fluency.

We have introduced functional English and shown that this is a helpful way of thinking about the
areas of language the students need to learn.

We have distinguished controlled practice from free-speaking activities and shown how
'topic, tools, task' provides a useful framework for planning speaking lessons.

We will now go on to look at writing.

Speaking lessons - conclusion

So far in this unit on teaching the productive skills we have looked at speaking.

We have considered the difference between fluency and accuracy and looked at various classroom
activities that promote fluency.

We have introduce Part 3: Teaching writing

What do we mean by writing?
The word 'writing' obviously has quite a broad meaning, covering both the ability to form letters with
a pen or pencil - handwriting - and, at a higher level, to produce lengthy pieces of meaningful text.

Writing is the use of symbols to represent language. This is usually a visual representation, although
Braille is a tactile writing system.

As we said in Unit 5, 'In some teaching situations you may find you are teaching adults who are
illiterate in their own language or people who are not yet familiar with the Roman alphabet. With
such students, the challenge for the teacher is much greater because you have to introduce students
to the concept of visual symbols representing sounds and meaning.'

d functional English and shown that this is a helpful way of thinking about the areas of language the
students need to learn.
We have distinguished controlled practice from free-speaking activities and shown how
'topic, tools, task' provides a useful framework for planning speaking lessons.

We will now go on to look at writing.

Part 3: Teaching writing

What do we mean by writing?
The word 'writing' obviously has quite a broad meaning, covering both the ability to form letters with
a pen or pencil - handwriting - and, at a higher level, to produce lengthy pieces of meaningful text.
Writing is the use of symbols to represent language. This is usually a visual representation, although
Braille is a tactile writing system.

As we said in Unit 5, 'In some teaching situations you may find you are teaching adults who are
illiterate in their own language or people who are not yet familiar with the Roman alphabet. With
such students, the challenge for the teacher is much greater because you have to introduce students
to the concept of visual symbols representing sounds and meaning.'

Teaching literacy - stages

If you do find yourself introducing students to the concept of visual symbols representing sounds and
meaning, you will need to start at the very beginning and show them how to actually form letters.
They will then need to have substantial practice of copying letters, words and punctuation.

This copying stage of writing is the first stage of learning to write. Learners then move on to guided
writing , and then free writing.

How we teach people to write:

Stage 1. Ask them to copy.

Stage 2. Provide them with guided writing tasks.

Stage 3. Provide them with free writing tasks.

We have put links to websites which provide handwriting and copying practice activities in Further
Resources. However, as teaching basic handwriting and literacy skills is not often required in EFL
teaching, we will not consider this further.

It is important to remember that nowadays most written texts are not handwritten, but are word-
processed on computers. Texting is also another form of writing.

Why teach writing?

1. Student needs
2. Needs analysis
3. Confidence building
4. Language practice
5. Free-speaking practice
6. Reading skills

Student needs
The primary reason for teaching students to write in English is that it is a useful skill, which most
students are likely to need.

Needs analysis
Teaching students to write in English, rather than just speaking English, helps the teacher to assess
students' progress and to identify problem areas which need further development.

Written work, which you can take away and study is easier to analyse than spoken utterances in the
classroom.

Confidence building
Teaching students to write in English, rather than just speaking, provides students with evidence of
their own progress.

Unlike in speaking activities, there is a tangible product that students can keep and compare with
earlier work.

Language practice
As with speaking activities, writing activities can be used to give freer practice of specific language
items, and free practice, because in many tasks students need to employ a wide range of language
and can choose what they are going to say. Free-writing activities, like free-speaking activities,
provide an opportunity to 'activate' language that has been taught in lessons. It also gives students
practice in communicating messages in English.

Free-speaking practice
If students work together to plan a piece of written work, it creates the need to communicate orally,
so preparing to write can also provide speaking practice.

Reading skills
In writing lessons students look at model texts.
Studying these and thinking about how they are structured helps develop reading skills.

Writing for freer practice of new language

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:
Look at these four writing assignments and make a list of the language (grammar and vocabulary)
the students are likely to use when completing the assignments. When you have created your list
reveal our answers on the next slide.

1. My first day at school

2. Write about what you and your family usually did at celebrations when you were a child.
3. My plans for the future
4. How to cook my favourite dish

Writing for freer practice of new language

Assignment title Language used

My first day at school classroom and school vocabulary/ narrative
past tenses
Write about what you and your family usually family members vocabulary/ narrative past
did at celebrations when you were a child. tenses/used to + infinitive to describe past
habits/ celebration vocabulary/ food
vocabulary possibly including cooking
vocabulary too.
My plans for the future future forms
How to cook my favourite dish food vocabulary/cooking
vocabulary/imperatives
Coherence
When we talk about teaching writing in EFL we are not usually referring to the very basic process of
how to transpose the sounds of the language to written symbols.

Rather, we are looking at how to help our students produce coherent pieces of written text.

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:

Look at the examples of the two texts on the next two slides.

Decide why we would say that the first one is a single text, but not the second.

Coherence
Task: Decide why we would say that Text 1 is a single text, but that Text 2 (on the next slide) is not.

Text 1
Frozen shoulder, which is also known as 'adhesive capsulitis', is a painful and sometimes distressing
condition. It involves stiffness and pain in the shoulder joint, making it difficult to raise the arm
sideways, to reach backwards and perform many other everyday movements. If the sufferer makes
the wrong movement, s/he experiences a sensation of extreme pain, lasting as long as 5 to 6
minutes. There is little one can do to improve the condition, except avoid the movements that cause
pain. The disorder typically comes on quite gradually, reaches a peak and then starts to resolve
itself. A whole episode usually lasts about 18 months.

Now take a look at Text 2.

The new hedge trimmer arrived today. My cat is incredibly bad tempered. A change in the weather is
known to be extreme. He always gets up late when he hasn't got school. She seems to be getting
very forgetful. Kath made some delicious cakes the other day. God created the world in seven days.
Charlie is going to see Savannah tomorrow. George has an irrational hatred of foreigners. Workers
of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. The Mill on the Floss is one of my
favourite novels. The purple flowers on Clare's front wall are in full bloom. Is it really necessary to
make people who work in shops wear ugly uniforms?

After noting down your answers, look at our answers on the next slide.

The sentences in Text 1 about the frozen shoulder are all clearly about the same topic - it is
a coherent text.

There are a number of cohesive devices used to show how the ideas in each sentence link to other
ideas in the paragraph. We will look at cohesive devices later.

The sentences in Text 2 have no apparent relationship to one another. It is just a random collection
of unrelated ideas. We do not consider a series of unrelated (incoherent) sentences to be a single
text.

What do we write?
Make a list of all the things you've written over the last few days (e.g. shopping list, email to Mum).
When you have completed your list, reveal our answers on the next slide and compare them with
your own.

Types of writing
Depending on the type of work you do and your interests, your list might include:

 shopping list
 text messages
 filling in forms
 emails - personal, work related
 report
  letters, e.g. letter of application, letter of complaint
 message in a greetings card
 presentation
 postcard
 note to friend/family
 small ad
 a telephone message
 essay
 diary entry/blog
 ‘to-do’ list
 business correspondence
 poem/story

Which of these different types of writing would be relevant to your students depends on their needs,
their language level, their interests and their reasons for learning English.

The article 'The Ultimate Guide to EFL Exams...' in Further Resources gives you to links to various
EFL exams. The writing papers show you the sort of writing tasks you are likely to teach.

How does written English differ from spoken English?

A teenage boy was asked to describe his last family holiday and then convert what he had said into
a short piece of writing.

Look at the spoken and written texts on this slide and make notes on what the
main differences are between them before revealing our answers on the next page and
comparing them with your own.

Spoken text listen to it here.

Listen to it here.

This is a modal window.

The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is
not supported.
"Sorry, yeah, what was I saying? Oh yeah, you asked about our holiday. OK. Me, my mum, my dad
and my sister went to Cornwall, and we...uummm... It was a very nice holiday. We stayed in a rented
house and every day we went on walks - we went to the beach a few times, there was a nice beach
where you could swim and we looked at a lot of mines and some of the mining machinery and how
the mines worked. They were copper mines or was it tin mines? It might have been tin mines.
Erm...we had fish and chips one night, the portions were massive. We couldn't finish them. And
there was a nice big ginger cat that lived in one of the houses near where we were staying. We went
there because it's really pretty round there and there's lots of things that everyone in my family's
interested in. We walked along cliffs and beaches and we went swimming, it's warm. Oh, and there's
rock pools too - oh, I haven't watched that programme about rock pools yet, maybe I'll watch it
tonight when I get home. The beaches were very nice - the waves were massive, one day we went
to a botanical garden. Yeah and the weather was fairly nice, but it was bit windy, wasn't it...yeah, it
was quite windy. There was some jet stream or something on and one day we went to a botanical
garden. It was a really nice holiday.”

Written text

Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

We all like walking, so every day we went on walks. We walked along the cliffs and beaches. There
was one really beautiful beach, where we went swimming a few times. All the beaches are lovely,
the water's warm and the waves are enormous, so you can go surfing if you know how. There are
rock pools, too. I was surprised at all the different things which live in them. The weather was quite
sunny, but it was a bit windy some days.

We looked at some disused tin mines and we visited the Geevor Mining Museum, where we saw
some of the mining machinery and learned about how the mines worked. One day we went to visit
Trewidden Garden, which has some really exotic plants because the climate is much milder in
Cornwall than the rest of the country.

We tried some local foods, such as pasties and cream teas, which I liked, and stargazy pie, which I
thought was disgusting because they leave the fishes' heads on. Mainly we cooked at home, but we
ate in the pub a few times. One night we got some delicious fish and chips from a takeaway in the
village. The portions were so massive that we couldn't finish them.

It was one of our best family holidays and I hope to go back again one day.

Differences between spoken language and written texts

The main difference between the spoken holiday text and the written text on the previous slide is that
the written text is more organised than the speech (unless someone is giving a planned speech,
which is often actually oral delivery of a written text).
The organisation is achieved in the following ways:

 ideas are organised into sentences

 sentences are organised logically into paragraphs according to topic
 paragraphs are organised into a whole text
 use of conjunctions and referencing (cohesive devices)
  more complex grammatical structures are used

 more careful choice and greater variety of vocabulary and structure

 irrelevant digressions are avoided
 writing conventions are employed: spelling, punctuation and layout conventions.

Cohesive devices
Cohesive devices are basically what holds a text together. These, in addition to the fact all the
sentences are broadly about the same thing, make it clear how the different parts of a text are
linked.
One of the most common cohesive devices is known as referencing. This is the use
of pronouns, possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives, demonstratives (this, that, these, those,
here, there) and definite articles (the) to refer to something or someone that is mentioned elsewhere
in the text.

Another cohesive device is the use of similar words or phrases (synonyms) to avoid repetition.

Pronouns revision activity

Print out or recreate this table in your notebook and then complete it.

Subject pronoun Object pronoun Possessive pronoun Possessive adjective

I mine
you
his
she hers
it _____ ('it' has no
possessive pronoun)
our
they
Revision activity - answers

Subject pronoun Object pronoun Possessive pronoun Possessive adjective

I me mine my
you you yours your
 he him his his
she her hers her
it it --- its
we us ours our
they them theirs their
Cohesion - referencing

Make a note of who or what the underlined parts of the text refer to.

Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

Cohesion
Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

This is who or what the underlined parts of the text refer to:
my - refers to the 'I' who is writing the text

We - refers to my mum, my dad, my sister and I

that part of the country - the north coast of Cornwall

there - that part of the country / the north coast of Cornwall

everyone in the family - my mum, my dad, my sister and I

which - the little rented cottage

that - the really huge ginger cat

she - my sister
it - the really huge ginger cat

Notice that without this kind of referencing the text would sound unnecessarily repetitive:

Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. My mum, my dad, my sister and I went to St. Just on the north coast of Cornwall because
the scenery is spectacular around St. Just on the north coast of Cornwall, and in St. Just on the
north coast of Cornwall are lots of things that my mum, my dad, my sister and I are interested in. My
mum, my dad, my sister and I stayed in a little rented cottage, the little rented cottage was very
pretty, but the little rented cottage smelt damp. In St. Just on the north coast of Cornwall was a really
huge ginger cat. The really huge ginger cat lived in one of the houses near the little rented cottage.
My sister loves cats, so my sister made friends with the really huge ginger cat.

The use of these devices makes the text more varied, shorter and more cohesive.

Notice that these referring words usually refer back to something that has already been mentioned in
the text; we refer back to my mum, my dad, my sister and I. That part of the country refers back
to the north coast of Cornwall. This is called anaphoric reference.

Sometimes we can make a reference forward to something that is specified later in the text, for
example, 'Because she was feeling really tired, Annali decided to have an early night'.
Here, she refers to Annali. Forward referencing is called cataphoric reference.

Cohesion
If you don't like the rather technical sounding terms anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference,
don’t worry about it.

These are not terms the students need to know and you do not need to use them, but an awareness
of these different ways of making references is important.

Referencing is basically just when something in one sentence refers to something in another
sentence (or occasionally outside the text).

Term Definition
Cataphoric reference Referring forward to something in the text
Anaphoric reference Referring back to something in the text
Exophoric reference Referring to something outside the text
Cohesion
While we do not need to teach the students these technical terms, it is very useful for students to do
exercises to check that they understand what pronouns and other similar words in the text refer to.
This kind of activity also raises their awareness of these devices and will help them use them in their
own writing.
Another cohesive device is the use of conjunctions (also called linking words or connectives).

Categories of conjunction
Here are some types of conjunction
Can you add any other words or phrases to the examples given?

Addition: and, also,

Cause/result: because,

Time: then, before that,

Condition: if, unless,

Categories of conjunction
These lists do not include all possibilities. If you have other words or phrases, they are not
necessarily wrong - check them by looking in a grammar book or doing an Internet search.
Addition: and, also, furthermore, moreover, what's more, in addition, too, etc.

Cause/result: because, thus, so, consequently, therefore, as a result, due to, etc.

Time: then, before that, next, in the end, first, finally, earlier, as soon as, first of all, later on, now, etc.

Condition: if, unless, if not, provided/providing that, as long as, even if, in case, assuming.

Revise conjunctions by completing the interactive activity below.

Relative clauses
Relative clauses are very commonly used in more complex sentences. They are much more
frequent in written English than in spoken English.

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:

Look at these two sentences:

A) The students who had finished the exam were allowed to leave the room.

B) The students, who had finished the exam, were allowed to leave the room.

What is the difference in meaning?

Check our answers on the next page.

Defining and non-defining relative clauses

A) The students who had finished the exam were allowed to leave the room.
This sentence means that some of the students had finished the exam and those students were
allowed to leave.

B) The students, who had finished the exam, were allowed to leave the room.

Sentence 'B' means that all the students had finished the exam and were allowed to leave.

The underlined part of each sentence is a relative clause.

In sentence A the relative clause is a defining (or identifying) relative clause.

It tells us which students we are talking about (so it defines or identifies them).

In sentence B the underlined clause is a non-defining (or non-identifying) relative clause. The clause
inside the commas gives us some additional information, but this is not necessary to our
understanding of the sentence.

These two types of relative clause are also referred to as essential and non-essential,
and restrictive and non-restrictive.

Sentence B could just say 'The students were allowed to leave the room'. Note also that in defining
relative clauses the relative pronoun can often be omitted, e.g. “The man (who/that) the ambassador
spoke to was not very polite.”

Relative clauses - examples

Here are some examples of relative clauses

Defining relative clauses Non-defining relative clauses

We have known the girl who's just arrived for Greville, who lives next door to us, is a
years. grumpy sod.
The cat which didn't cost us anything is much This cat, which cost us £25, is the most
better natured than the cat that we paid for. neurotic cat I've ever known.
The man who I spoke to this morning was My mother, who was a policewoman for forty
incredibly unhelpful. years, thinks that prison usually does more
harm than good.
Relative clauses
Relative clauses can give us information about either the subject or the object of a clause.
It is easy to recognise non-defining relative clauses because of the commas.

Notice that if you say two sentences with the same wording, such as examples A and B:

A) The students who had finished the exam were allowed to leave the room.

B) The students, who had finished the exam, were allowed to leave the room.
They are said differently; the commas used in written English are marked by tiny pauses in spoken
English. So sentence B is broken into three 'chunks': The students/who had finished the exam/were
allowed to leave the room.

In sentence A the whole phrase 'The students who had finished the exam' is the subject of the
sentence and so this is said as a single chunk.

The most common relative pronouns in English are who, which and that. We can also
use whose and whom:
Will the person whose red Peugeot is parked in front of the entrance please come to reception
immediately?

The man to whom I spoke this morning...

To most people whom now sounds old-fashioned and unnecessarily formal and it is falling out of
use. Most speakers would prefer to use who in this location, as in the third example in the table two
pages back.

When and where, which in this location are relative adverbs, behave in a very similar way to
relative pronouns:

The town where I was born is rather a dull place.

Do you remember that day when we went to the races?

Implications for teaching

Relative clauses, pronoun use, and conjunctions are not the most scintillating aspects of English
grammar, however, they are all important features of written English. Your students will need to learn
how to use them in order to produce more sophisticated pieces of writing. You will, therefore, need
to teach them. We do not have time to look at relative clauses in more detail in this module, but
some links are provided in Further Reading so you can do your own research on this area.

Lexical cohesion
The types of cohesion we have discussed so far; different types of referencing using pronouns,
possessives and demonstratives, and the use of conjunctions, are types of grammatical cohesion.
Lexical cohesion
Two of the examples we looked at - that part of the country to refer to the north coast of Cornwall,
and everyone in the family to refer to my mum, my dad, my sister and / - are types of lexical
cohesion. (Remember, lexis means vocabulary.)

There are two main types of lexical cohesion, the first is reiteration, that is, the repetition of the
same word or synonyms for that word throughout the text. The second is collocation; the use of
words and phrases from the same lexical field (i.e. topic).

Although lexical cohesion is referred to as a device, it is perhaps more useful to see it just as an
obvious feature of a coherent text. A text on a particular topic will obviously include a lot of words
and phrases related to that topic.
Reiteration

NOTEBOOK ACTIVITY:
In our holiday text, there is some simple repetition, for example, walk and beach are both repeated.

We can also find the use of synonyms; the writer refers to the family's holiday accommodation
twice.
What words or phrases does he use to refer to it?

Here's the holiday text again.

Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

We all like walking, so every day we went on walks. We walked along the cliffs and beaches. There
was one really beautiful beach where we went swimming a few times. All the beaches are lovely, the
water's warm and the waves are enormous, so you can go surfing if you know how. There are rock
pools, too. I was surprised at all the different things which live in them. The weather was quite sunny,
but it was a bit windy some days.

Check your answers on the next slide.

Reiteration
a little rented cottage, where we were staying (both in paragraph 1)
The use of different words and phrases to refer to the same thing (rather than simple repetition) can
make texts more interesting and varied.

Collocation
RESEARCH TASK:
The fact that the family stayed near the sea is introduced early in the written holiday text. The writer
says in the first sentence that they 'went on holiday on the north coast of Cornwall'.
If possible, ask someone who has not read the text to make a list of words and phrases associated
with sea and coast.

If you have not got anyone to help you with this task, then make your own list without looking back at
the text.

When you have completed your list, look at the next slide.
Collocation
Someone who had not read the text might produce this list:

 waves  pier
 breakers  shells
 sand  pebbles
 sand castles  ice cream
 swimming  sun
 surf  wind
 rock pools  lighthouses
 crabs  boats
 fish and chips  long-shore drift
 shingle  cliffs
 promenade

Now find words and phrases associated with sea/coast in our

holiday text.

Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

We all like walking, so every day we went on walks. We walked along the cliffs and beaches. There
was one really beautiful beach where we went swimming a few times. All the beaches are lovely, the
water's warm and the waves are enormous, so you can go surfing if you know how. There are rock
pools, too. I was surprised at all the different things which live in them. The weather was quite sunny,
but it was a bit windy some days.

We looked at some disused tin mines and we visited the Geevor Mining Museum, where we saw
some of the mining machinery and learned about how the mines worked. One day we went to visit
Trewidden Garden, which has some really exotic plants because the climate is much milder in
Cornwall than the rest of the country.

We tried some local foods, such as pasties and cream teas, which I liked, and stargazy pie, which I
thought was disgusting because they leave the fishes' heads on. Mainly we cooked at home, but we
ate in the pub a few times. One night we got some delicious fish and chips from a takeaway in the
village. The portions were so massive that we couldn't finish them.

It was one of our best family holidays and I hope to go back again one day.

We've put the words and phrases associated with sea/coast in bold.
Last summer my mum, my dad, my sister and I went on holiday to St. Just on the north coast of
Cornwall. We went to that part of the country because the scenery is spectacular around there and
there are lots of things that everyone in the family is interested in. We stayed in a little rented
cottage, which was very pretty, but smelt damp. There was a really huge ginger cat that lived in one
of the houses near where we were staying. My sister loves cats, so she made friends with it.

We all like walking, so every day we went on walks. We walked along the cliffs and beaches. There
was one really beautiful beach where we went swimming a few times. All the beaches are lovely,
the water's warm and the waves are enormous, so you can go surfing if you know how. There
are rock pools, too. I was surprised at all the different things which live in them. The weather was
quite sunny, but it was a bit windy some days.

We looked at some disused tin mines and we visited the Geevor Mining Museum, where we saw
some of the mining machinery and learned about how the mines worked. One day we went to visit
Trewidden Garden, which has some really exotic plants because the climate is much milder in
Cornwall than the rest of the country.

We tried some local foods, such as pasties and cream teas, which I liked, and stargazy pie, which I
thought was disgusting because they leave the fishes' heads on. Mainly we cooked at home, but we
ate in the pub a few times. One night we got some delicious fish and chips from a takeaway in the
village. The portions were so massive that we couldn't finish them.

It was one of our best family holidays and I hope to go back again one day.

For most people there will be quite a high degree of overlap between their list and the words and
phrases used in the text. This illustrates the point made in Unit 5 when we were talking about
reading skills.

The same is true of listening, so we have added the words in square brackets.

We said '...even before you begin reading [or listening], you have ideas about what you are going to
read [or hear]. You have made predictions about the content of the passages and even the sort of
language that will be used.'

Implications for teaching

We can help our students improve the quality of their writing by including vocabulary revision and
introducing new vocabulary in our writing lessons.
Not only will their essays be more interesting and varied if they use a wide range of vocabulary, the
process of writing will also provide freer practice of the new language and help them learn it.

We also need to encourage students to use the various cohesive devices looked at earlier in the
unit.

The final part of this unit takes a closer look at how to teach writing.

Process writing lessons

Just as we would not often ask students to sit and silently read long texts in the classroom, it is not a
very good use of class time to get students to actually do written assignments during lessons.
Writing lessons, therefore, usually focus on the process of constructing a piece of writing; students
plan their written work in class, but do the actual writing for homework.

This approach is known as process writing.

In your notebook make notes on what the process of writing is.

If you are going to write something important (e.g. an essay, a report for work, a letter of
application, etc.) what stages do you go through?

The writing process: Activity feedback

Normally people follow this process:

1. Gather ideas - listing the points you could include, researching if necessary.

2. Plan - selecting ideas, organising ideas in a logical order, deciding what to include in each
paragraph/section.

3. Write a first draft.

4. Review and edit.

5. Rewrite.

You may feel that stages 3 to 5 sound rather elaborate. This really reflects the writing process used
before word processors were widely available, when it was common for people to produce a rough
draft, which they then edited before copying out the final version. Nowadays, people tend to combine
stages 3 to 5, as word processors allow you to edit as you are writing. Because of this you may find
that students are rather resistant to the idea of writing first and second drafts of their assignments.

It is stages 1 and 2 that are covered during writing lessons in class. The writing and rewriting are
done as homework tasks, with the teacher marking the first version and making suggestions for
improvement.

Writing lessons
The teaching of writing is normally approached by looking at different genres (styles and types) of
writing.

Even at quite low levels we can draw students' attention to, for example, the different types of
language and layouts we would use when writing formal and informal letters and emails.

How can we ensure that writing lessons aren’t boring?

While most students understand the need to do writing on their English courses, many find it quite
dull. This means it is important to motivate them, firstly by looking at why practising writing is useful
and relevant to them, and secondly by choosing interesting tasks and topics.

When we talked about what to consider when planning a speaking lesson, we said you should
consider the following three areas:

Topic - you need to choose something that is interesting and relevant to the students as the topic.

Task - you need to think of a suitable activity within which the topic can be dealt with.

Tools - students need to have the necessary language to talk about the topic. Even if your students
are interested in current affairs, if they are very low level, they simply would not have enough
language to be able to do something like have a debate about immigration.

The same considerations apply to a writing lesson:

Choose an interesting topic.

Think about the task - students do not always have to write an essay - it could be a report, an
advertisement, a poster or a magazine article.

As with speaking tasks, to give students a fair chance of producing a successful piece of writing, you
need to ensure that they have the necessary tools. This includes not only the vocabulary needed,
but also an awareness of stylistic conventions and how to organise the whole text and individual
paragraphs. They also need to be able to manipulate the language in order to use conjunctions
appropriately and to produce a variety of structures, such as relative clauses and passive forms. You
will improve your students' motivation to write if you ensure that when they do a written task, they are
able to complete it successfully.

It is the last of these three aspects - the tools - that can potentially be the most boring, as the
detailed attention required to produce grammatically correct structures is difficult and tiring for many
people. It is a good idea to look at these aspects of writing frequently for short periods rather than
spending, say, a whole double lesson on relative clauses or article use.
Marking writing
Some Japanese students staying in the UK were asked to interview a partner. For homework they
had to turn the answers they had written in class into a short paragraph about their partner to go into
the course magazine.

The interview sheet the students were given is on the next slide. (As the class was lower
intermediate [B1], the teacher needed to pre-teach much of the vocabulary and check that the
students understood all the questions before they did the interviews.)

Here's what the students were asked to do.

For homework write a connected paragraph about your partner for the course magazine we
are making. You can use this interview sheet in class to help you gather the information.

Here is an example of the kind of paragraph I'd like you to write:

My partner's name is Matthew. He's 17 years old and he lives with his parents and his older sister in
Wolverhampton. He is studying English, sociology and media studies at his local sixth-form college.
He likes playing computer games and going out with his friends.

He says that the news makes him depressed, but his favourite saying is 'Don't worry, be happy', so
he avoids watching the news! The trait he most dislikes in other people is taking themselves too
seriously.

Matt says that if he went to a desert island, he would take his dog, a cigarette lighter and some
Japanese manga books. He thinks that if he were an ice cream, he would probably be ginger flavour
because he's got ginger hair. Matt is a friendly boy, but he seems a little bit crazy!

Marking writing: Activity

Here is the written work that one of the students emailed to the teacher:

Open this example of how a teacher might mark this work.

In your notebook make notes on what problems there might be with the marking approach
shown on the link above.

When you have completed your notes, compare your answers with our comments on the next slide.
If you want to, you can check the sudent's language level (B1) on this CEFR grammar levels site.

Here's what we think about how the teacher has marked this written activity.
1. The teacher has corrected every single mistake and has covered the paper in red comments. This
could be very discouraging for the student and lead her to feel that her writing skills are very weak,
when, in fact, this is not bad work for a student of this level.

2. Some of the correction is unnecessary: The homework was not about how to write an email, so
this comment could have been omitted. He comes from Tokyo, Japan is acceptable, as is American
spelling. It is not really necessary in an informal piece of work like this for the student to attribute the
quote.

3. The teacher has written in the correct version of all the mistakes. Many students will not even read
the corrections - they just look at the mark or overall comment - so it could be a total waste of the
teacher's time.

4. The teacher has not explained the mistakes, except for the comment no comma before
subordinate clause, which the student is not likely to understand. If she does read the corrections,
she will not learn much from them because there is no guidance as to why her original sentences
are wrong.

5. The biggest mistake the student has made is not writing a connected paragraph as the homework
required. This student has only written a list of unconnected sentences, but the teacher has not
commented on this; she has just pointed out grammar mistakes. It is important to help our students
understand that good writing means more than just producing grammatically correct sentences.

6. The overall comment is critical, not encouraging.

7. The student is likely to feel demotivated on receiving this feedback.

What is the purpose of correction?

As teachers, we are trying to help our students make progress in English. When they get feedback
on their work, they want an indication of how well they have done and what areas they need to work
on.

The purpose of a writing assignment is to communicate something on a given topic and the student
has managed to do this, although she hasn't produced a connected paragraph. It would be much
more helpful and constructive for the teacher to comment on these aspects of the work.

The teacher often also designs a written assignment so that students will practise particular
language.

Take a look at the interview questions that the teacher designed for the Japanese students.

 What's your idea of perfect happiness?

 What objects do you always carry with you?
 What makes you depressed?
 What would you do if you won the lottery?
 What is your favourite quote or saying?
 What is the trait you most dislike in others?
 What do you most dislike about yourself?
 Where would you go in a time machine?
 Which historical figure do you most admire?
 If you were an ice cream, what flavour would you be?
 What 3 items would you take to a desert island other than food and water?

Which of these grammatical structures:

second conditional, future simple, relative clause, past simple

is repeated four times in the questions?

Think about your answer before looking at the next slide.

The second conditional is used four times in the interview questions.

 What would you do if you won the lottery?

 Where would you go in a time machine?
 If you were an ice cream, what flavour would you be?
 What 3 items would you take to a desert island other than food and water?

The lesson would have presumably included a review of the second conditional. However, the
student has failed to produce this when reporting the two second conditional questions she asked
her partner:

 If he becomes ice cream, he becomes chocolate.

  He will buy a house at seaside if he win a lottery.

It would be helpful for the teacher to highlight that these sentences require the form looked at in
class.

Correction code
When you set a writing task it should require the students to use language they already know. (If
they needed a lot of language they did not already know, then the task would be unsuitable for
students of that level - how can they write an assignment using language they do not know?)
The fact students are using the language they have already learned means that when they make
mistakes, they should be able to correct them themselves.

It is much more useful to mark in a way which points out where the mistakes are, but requires
students to correct them for themselves.

We can do this by using a correction code, such as the one below, to indicate the types of mistakes
the students have made.

 T - wrong tense
 W.W. - wrong word
 Vb form - wrong form of the verb
 Wd form - wrong form of the word
 ˄- word missing
 art - article
 prep – preposition needed/wrong preposition
 Sp - spelling
 Sub/vb - subject-verb agreement (This means they don't go together e.g *He have, *She
were)
 Pl - plural
 Sing - singular
 W.O.- word order
 Punct - punctuation (. , ?)

You can develop your own correction code. Near the start of the course you will need to give
students a copy of the code you are going to use and go through it with them to ensure they
understand it.

Notes:

T means students have used the wrong tense, e.g. present continuous, rather than past continuous,
as in

I am driving to the beach last Sunday, when my car broke down.

Vb form means that either the student has tried to produce the correct tense, but has got it wrong as
in

I was drived to the beach....

or has mixed up infinitive and -ing form

I am interested in go to British museum

He likes to dancing.

Wd form means the student has used the wrong item from a word family. e.g.:

We had an interesting converse.

What to correct?
It is sometimes argued that using a red pen is alienating for students as it looks aggressive, and that
teachers should mark in green. Students, however, do not always agree; some say they prefer red
because it is easier to see. It is worth asking your students what they prefer. Whatever colour you
use, always make sure that it is quite different from whatever the student has used so that they can
see clearly which parts of the work you have marked.

If all the mistakes are pointed out it can be demotivating; even advanced students make a very high
number of mistakes in writing. You might choose to focus just on particular areas, such as how well
they are using a grammatical structure they have recently learned. (If you do this, make sure you tell
students that you have not corrected all the mistakes to avod anyone accusing you of not bothering
to mark properly!).

Of course, students will sometimes try to express something that they do not yet have the grammar
or vocabulary to say. In the previous example, the student has written 'say dirty word' because she
probably doesn't know the verb 'to swear'.

She has actually used the language she does know quite creatively to get the idea across and
deserves credit for this.

When the student does not already know the word or grammatical structure they need, then the
teacher should provide it (just as when we are trying to elicit language during a lesson).

The correction could be:

He dislikes people who say dirty word to person. Plural needed!

'say dirty words' is a good way of saying this, but there is a verb for this in English: to swear (-swore -
sworn) [at someone].

'He dislikes people who swear at other people'.

Some writers distinguish between mistakes and errors in learner English.

A mistake is when students have learned the rule already, but have not yet internalised the rule, or
have simply made a slip.
An error is when they get the language wrong because they do not yet know that form.

The teacher should use the correction code for mistakes, but provide the correct form for errors.
When you return homework, students should use the correction code to help them correct their own
mistakes

Correction activity
Look at the example of homework on this slide from a lower-intermediate student. The class has
been working on letters of complaint. You can see that the student is using some standard phrases,
probably provided by the teacher when the class looked at models, but there are lots of mistakes in
the parts he has composed himself. He should be able to correct most of the mistakes himself.

Copy and paste this text and either print it out, or save it on your device.
Mark the work using the correction code.

----

Dear sire/Madam

I am writing to complain about house I am staying in spine two weeks.

The house owned by Hugo Garcia, according the information you send. When I arrive at

the house it's smaller than you say me. The air conditioner doesn't work at all and house is

not clean. And it was very noisy. The house next to a restaurant.

I am very disappointed from your company's services and I expect to receive a full refund

to the agency fee.

I look forward to receiving a satisfactory reply.

Your faithfully
Abdul Nabi Al-Mazra

What constructive comment would you add at the end?

Make your corrections before looking at the next slide.

Correction activity feedback

Here's how the teacher Claudia corrected the students work. Compare it with your own corrections.

If you would like a copy you can download it here

Key points
 Writing is a useful way of giving students free and freer practice of new language.
It is also helpful for the teacher as it provides a way of assessing students' progress and
identifying problem areas.
 Planning a writing lesson is often similar to planning a speaking lesson in that students need
an interesting topic and task, and the tools (language and information about the genre) to
complete an assignment successfully.
Get students to work together in small groups to plan assignments in class and ask them to
do the writing individually for homework.
 When you are planning a written assignment, think about your aims.
What style of writing is it and what language do you hope the students will practise?
Provide at least one model so students can see what they are trying to achieve.
 When you are marking, focus mainly on the aspects of the writing that reflect the aims of the
task.
Avoid demotivating the students by pointing out every single mistake. Use a correction code
and during the next lesson get students to work in pairs on correcting the mistakes they have
made.
If students have made an error because they do not already know the language they need,
then provide the correct form.
 As well as the broader tasks of using appropriate vocabulary and genre, you will also need to
focus on some of the more 'boring' details of writing, such as writing complex sentences and
constructing paragraphs correctly. Include work on these aspects in writing and grammar
classes, but generally do not spend too long on them at any one time.